Molly Huddle, Ben True Are USA 5K Champs

Molly Huddle, a London Olympic finalist in the 5000-meter run, turned in her best track performance of 2012 with a 15:01 in Brussels on September 7, so she was clearly fit as lined up Sunday morning for the USA 5K Championships in her training base of Providence, Rhode Island.Huddle, who holds the American 5000-meter record of 14:44.76 on the track, won

this race in 2010 and added another national title on Sunday with a 15:30 victory. An impressive harbinger of the future could be seen in the 15:34 runner-up performance by Neely Spence, a former NCAA Division II star who's now a Hansons-Brooks professional athlete and was in just her second race since coming back after a foot injury. Elizabeth Maloy was third and Gabriele Anderson took fourth place at the national championships, which are held in conjunction with the CVS Caremark Downtown 5K.The men's national-title race was far more competitive. At 2 miles, there was still a reasonably intact pack of 15 runners. Nearing the finish, Ben True and Andrew Bumbalough, who were sixth, and fourth, respectively, in the 5000 at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, were neck and neck until True squeezed ahead just before the line and took first by 1/10th of a second in 13:52 (it's not an easy 5K course). True became the first back-to-back winner of this championships since Odis Sanders in 1980 and 1981. MoreRobert Cheserek, who'd won this race in 2010, was third in 13:54, and Aaron Braun took fourth in 13:55. Alan Webb was 12th in 14:14.

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